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Topic: ROTS Figure Sales (or price hikes)! (Read 16500 times)

Okay, maybe this has to do with that magic economics text that Hasbro has in their ivory tower in Pawtucket, or maybe the suits in Bentonville and Minneapolis have the same book, but a price hike at this point doesn't make any sense whatsoever. In fact, it should probably be the opposite.

What I mean is this: ROTS figures are released April 2nd and are priced at 5.99 at Target, 5.88 at Wal-Mart, and 5.99 at TRU (or so I'm told; I don't have one near me). Within a week, the prices have dropped to 5.24 at WM, with most Targets in the same price range. During that time leading up to and during the release of the movie, you'd think that the higher price would be the more logical one, since demand is higher and you have a greater chance of selling said products.

Now that the film is out, they raise the prices back to the 6 dollar range, basically cutting down on their casual sales. Hell, even TRU.com has raised their prices (as I noted earlier in this thread) to 7.99 on figures! Wouldn't the price logically be higher when demand is higher and once it has cooled off, then you lower the prices?

The "cup is completely ******* empty" side of my thinking is that this price hike, plus the fact that Batman Begins and Fantastic Four are coming soon, has the retailers (and WM in particular; I've never been in a WM where the SW section is treated well and not short-shifted) attempting to wash their hands of SW again now that the "hype" is over. By raising prices, they are taking away their own sales, to be sure, but the WMs near me are just plain spiteful toward SW collectors, and one has even taken down the SW aisle completely, shoving all the figures they could fit into the "usual" 8 pegs in the action figure aisle and boxing everything else up in the back in case those eight pegs need restocking.

I honestly think that toys in general are becoming a niche market with the popularity of video games and all, and retail doesn't know how to handle them. Action figures are a dying fad in their eyes and they only do what they "have to do" in order to keep people coming in. Unfortunately when you have no new stock and you raise your prices in favor of the "flavor of the week" toys getting shelf space, you drive away a lot of repeat customers who would otherwise be spending a lot more money in your store.

I popped off to a WM tonight... They were still on the $4.99 kick there, and it's out in the boonies. Their figure selection basically screamed "hey, we're out in the boonies!" as well though, since they really only had 4/2 remnants and no sign of restocking (the tell-tale Wookiees, Neimodians, and Clone Pilots were nowhere to be seen), and plenty of empty (or near empty) pegs.

I'm curious about what's happening at busier parts of the city, so I'm gonna try a toy run a night this week to see what's shakin' at those WM's I think.

The price hike timing seems ridiculous to me as well, if anything they should be $5.24-ish or cheaper. As of yesterday, our Wal-Mart was still at the $5.24 pricepoint, but I believe our Target is at $5.99. And Amazon is just ridiculous. I got excited seeing that Tarkin was available for a short time online last week, but just couldn't bring myself to pay $7.99 for that figure (plus the shipping). I can wait and hope I find it at retail instead. That pricepoint is just way out of whack. Now it is sounding more and more like the price hikes will be across the board for things, not just the basic figures. Hopefully that won't be the case though.

On a side note, our Wal-Mart actually still has the "seperate" Star Wars aisle, as well as the normal display section in the action figure aisle. I keep hearing that stores are condensing their displays and just going back to the normal section, but I honestly don't see where they are going to put all of this stuff. Lots of Force Battlers (no Vaders), lots of Galactic Heroes (just restocked with the newer wave yesterday), and restocked Unleashed (first 3), as well as all the basic figure stuff, Attacktix, puzzles, games, the Trilogy DVDs (which they recently stuck there for some reason as well), and all the other misc. junk that has been put out for the release. It doesn't seem like the bigger section is going anywhere anytime soon, although the basic figure pegs have been slightly reduced in that area it seems. Nothing "new" really, at least past the #42-44 figures.

I keep hearing that stores are condensing their displays and just going back to the normal section, but I honestly don't see where they are going to put all of this stuff.

Well, as I said in my previous post, at one of the local WMs here, they just took whatever they couldn't cram into the regular action figure aisle and boxed it back up, taking it into the storeroom until the stuff they crammed into the AF aisle sold. It's kind of sad looking too, as there are seriously only 8 pegs for SW and they just shoved whatever would fit on there and dumped anything in a box onto the shelves below. It's interesting to note that this is the same SWM that was supposed to do the Midnight Madness thing and didn't even have an aisle set up in preparation and actually had to go back and bring stuff out to keep the 30 or so people there from complaining.

Another area of concern is that an early WM plan-o-gram book (similar to the one that Target employees got) said that the SW aisle was to last until early August at least in the "feature aisle." I still don't know if this is a nationwide movie on WMs part to dismantle the aisle (the 2 other local WMs still have their SW aisles up, although they've been heavily picked over and not restocked) or if it's just this one WM (which has not had the strongest track record with SW at all), but it's still a little disconcerting.

But yeah, Ben, I can definitely see it now. "Sales of products from 'Star Wars: Episode III' were much lower than expected and actually resulted in a loss at Hasbro. 'We just don't understand why the 'Force Battlers' line, with tons of cool kid-friendly action features, and the Attacktix line didn't sell. With no more movies on the horizon, it may be time for us to overhaul our strategy on Star Wars merchandising in general to avoid further losses.'"

I believe that fully. I used to work at Pamida in college, and the prices were quite outrageous for the most part. But, it was basically the only place in town (no Wal-Mart, Target, etc.) so it still seemed to get business. We have Shopkos here in Nebraska as well, and I believe their figure prices are $9 as well. I don't see how they could sell any at that price.

I recently purchased the remote 3 3/4" R2 and the Anakin .45 saber off shopsw.

Just an FYI, there's a pretty good sale going on at shopsw tright now (click on the red/white/blue banner. Now, the regular figs, toys and such aren't that great a deal, but if you dig around you'll see the Clone Wars season 1 and 2 posters are only $10 (half off) and the japaneese posters are on sale too. The Vader M&M poster is only about $12, a pretty ncie deal. etc.

Just thought I'd mention, especially if you're into the posters. Might not want to miss it.

Yeah, looks like the price hike's gonna be across the board here, with most/all WM's joining the fray with their new $5.88 prices, so they can remain "competitive" with Target after their similar price hike...

And now for some breaking news....I saw a commercial last night for Walmart promoting the ROTS Star Wars figures. At the end of the commercial they gave their "new" price of $5.88 each. So unless walmart has decided to do some false advertising everyone get their wallets ready for another price hike.

Much like has been posted, my local Walmart just increased the price of figures to $5.88. Here's the funny thing though. Two weeks ago, they had maybe 10 or so figures on the pegs, they had cleared out so much stuff. Then they suddenly had an influx of cases, they went from 10 to 10 dozen figures in one night. And most of it was the first wave of figures. Today, they still have the majority of those figures, and sure enough since they couldn't sell them in two weeks time at $5.24, they bumped it up too $5.88. Freakin morons!

$5.24 is a pretty good price I think. I remember the 1995 start Wal-Mart had them at $4.76, heh.

then they went up to like $5.25. Most bitter I was about that. I think that's what spurred them to start with the stupid slides and comtech junk. I like the idea of having a free battle droid with each figure!

We've seen the hikes here as well now, $5.88 at Wal-Mart, $5.99 at Target. Although still better than the $7-$8 days of Episode I, for some reason the hike up to $6 does bother me. I guess $5 just felt much better for a Star Wars figure. Especially when you see Marvel Legends, Fantastic Four movie, Batman movie, GI Joe, etc. for around the same price (and larger figures) or cheaper. Oh well, like I said, still better than 7 or 8, but $5 was just fine with me .